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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25633021">Some Things Are Meant</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CQueen/pseuds/CQueen'>CQueen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Enemies to Lovers, Light Angst, M/M, Romantic Soulmates, Werewolf Mates</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:34:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,035</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25633021</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CQueen/pseuds/CQueen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When The Goddess decides a werewolf's mate for him it is considered the greatest gift their goddess could bestow on him.</p><p>Then Yusuf spots his across the field of battle.  Sees his soulmate, the one intended to complete him, fall in battle.</p><p>Luckily for him Nicolò isn't that easy to kill.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>386</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Some Things Are Meant</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the original characters and the situations the characters find themselves in. Thanks so much for choosing my story to read and giving me feedback on my work. It's muchly appreciated and I do read every review you send me!</p><p>Some Things Are Meant</p><p>As he walked amongst his people in his wolf form, their howls of victory occasionally piercing the air and joined by others in haunting song, Yusuf recognized, on some level, their jubilant and relief. How triumph and happy they were, he thought dimly to himself, having vanquished, at least for the day, their sworn enemy and would be invaders. They had fought for hours, faced death countless times, and now it was time to celebrate their good fortune and thank The Goddess for their victory.</p><p>Yusuf did not begrudge them that, even though he could not join them in their merrymaking.</p><p>Of course he knew that he was not alone in that. There were others who sat alone or with those closest to them, mourning the loss of a father, son, brother, or friend. Today's victory, and those before it had come at a bloody cost, and they were likely to lose more in the final hours before night fell from injuries so severe that not even their kind's great healing ability could save them in time.</p><p>No one came to comfort him...because no one knew what Yusuf had lost this day. What he had only had for less than two meager hours before it had slipped through his fingers for forever. Today he had lost his mate...and had never even learned the other wolf's name. Never heard the sound of his voice or even touched him for one fleeting moment. All they'd had was that wonderful, terrible moment of recognition on the battlefield. That moment, as they'd stood on opposing sides, waiting for their pack alpha to sound the charge.</p><p>They'd looked. They'd known. And when his dark eyes had met those pale blue grey ones he'd seen the same joy he'd felt, turning quickly to terrible grief with the realization that they could never be. That they'd found their other half only to lose it just as quickly.</p><p>Then the battle had begun and Yusuf had thrown himself into it, forcing himself not to look or think about the brown wolf with the foggy blue eyes who was both his soulmate and his enemy. Who had come to slaughter him and his people and take their lands and freedom. He had used all his grief and rage that the mate he'd been waiting for all his life, writing countless pages of poetry for and spent years daydreaming about was never to be his. Was not someone he should ever want to be his.</p><p>But the cruelty of fate had been far from done with him, and Yusuf had spotted his mate once more in the heat of battle. His one was fierce and strong, fearless, and Yusuf had felt hate and pride in equal measure to see proof of his mate's strength and skill...and then it had happened. Having slain his latest opponent with ease Sadik, a powerful, brutal alpha from Yusuf's own pack, had charged his mate with a death howl that had pierced Yusuf's heart like razor sharp claws. Had known then that his mate would not survive this.</p><p>He'd broken out into a run as he'd watched the two wolves collide so close and yet so far from him, Yusuf running as fast as his four legs could carry him while his heart and head did battle as he howled his fear and anguish.</p><p>What he would have done, whose side he would have taken if he'd gotten there in time-he didn't know. He'd watched as his mate had been grabbed by the neck, Sadik's teeth sinking in deep and making the other wolf cry out in pain before Yusuf's mate was shook hard enough to snap the smaller wolf's spine, Sadik then tossing the limp form head first into a nearby rock formation, blood smearing down the stone as the body sank lifeless to the dirt.</p><p>Dead. His mate was dead.</p><p>The rest of the battle had been a blur. Yusuf honestly had no idea how it was that he was still alive. He certainly didn't want to be. Only instinct and training must have saved him, and he wished it had not.</p><p>"Yusuf? Where do you go?"</p><p>Glancing over his shoulder Yusuf met his cousin's gaze for the briefest of moments before looking away. His heart ached to speak of his loss and anguish, his grief and wish for death. But he could not. Instead he used the pack's telepathic connection to each other to tell his cousin he was going for a walk and then hurried away.</p><p>He could tell no one, though most would not damn him for the fact that his mate had been one of the enemy. They had no control over who The Goddess picked for them after all. No, their distain would come from the fact that his beloved, his other half, had been a beta wolf.</p><p>Their kind was dying out, the fertility of their females lessening with every generation. The situation was becoming so dire that they'd heard some packs had resorted to allowing their wolves to mate with humans, who were so much more fertile and bore children so easily. Most packs forbade this though. Just as they did not allow their alpha and beta males to take mates that could not give them children.</p><p>They would say it was better that his mate had died. That he had an obligation to his pack and his species to have children. They might even say The Goddess had done this to him deliberately, as punishment for his past stubborn refusal to let his family match him with someone 'suitable'.</p><p>So no...he would tell no one.</p><p>He would go alone to the battlefield and walk among the bodies left there to rot when his mate's pack had retreated and run for their worthless lives. He would find the body of his mate and he would see that it was given a proper burial.</p><p>It was all he could do to honor him now.</p><p>)</p><p>It was slow going, the scents of blood and rotting flesh assaulting Yusuf's nose and making him grateful for his empty stomach and years spent on the battlefield, which gave him the strength to keep putting one paw in front of the other. He'd have preferred to block it all out, to let the horrors all around him blur around the edges, but there was a chance his enemies still residing nearby and he could not die yet. If they wished for his death they could have it...but only after he'd seen to his mate's body.</p><p>But when he got to the spot where his mate had fallen the body was not there. There was the other wolf's blood, drying on the stone, congealed on the dirt at his feet...but the body was nowhere to be seen.</p><p>Had a member of his mate's family come back for it already? Had his mate had a lover amongst his own pack that was even now clutching Yusuf's mate close, his tears raining down on the body as he cried out his grief and loss. Unknowing that his lover had found, in his last day upon the earth, his true other half?</p><p>But even in the dimming light Yusuf could see that the ground told another story. That when he looked at it with new eyes he could see...</p><p>Could it be? Had his mate...could he be alive?</p><p>Tracking was not his greatest skill, but Yusuf was wolf and he had to know. Had to know if his mate still lived.</p><p>)</p><p>Once Yusuf left the battlefield it was easier to pick up his mate's scent and tracks. He had been wrong to think his mate dead, but the injuries he must have sustained had still been significant enough to slow him down. The blood trails, drag marks, and spots his mate had laid down to rest all told that story, a testament to the beta's stubborn resolve to keep moving in spite of the pain and exhaustion he must have been feeling. And that on top of his mental and emotional anguish, having learned about Yusuf. His mate truly was a warrior. And very stubborn and determined.</p><p>It was completely dark when Yusuf arrived at what had likely been his mate's destination from the start. A small wooden area where Yusuf knew-and presumably his mate had as well-that concealed with it a small pool fed by an underground spring. The most logical place to seek shelter and water for the night.</p><p>Making his way into the trees with careful, soundless treads Yusuf headed straight for the pool. He hadn't seen signs that anyone else had had his mate's destination in mind, but there was still a chance that his mate wasn't the only one here-or that his mate would not welcome his arrival either. The enemy was unrelenting and fanatical in their determination. He would be more than a fool if he didn't go in expecting-oh.</p><p>All Yusuf's thoughts turned to poetry in that moment, though no line he'd ever written or read by the masters of that artform could begin to describe the beauty and perfection of this.</p><p>Of the moment he first glimpsed his mate, the other wolf now in his human form, bathing in the almost waist high water with the rays of the nearly full moon above washing over him like The Goddess's fingers were caressing his form while insuring that Yusuf would not miss the gift she had given him.</p><p>In this form they were of equal height and size. His mate's skin was much paler than Yusuf's own, his mate's dark hair shaggy and straight. From this angle Yusuf only had a side view, but he could see that his mate's features were very strong, particularly his jaw and nose, though it was admittedly difficult to give his mate's face the attention it deserved when Yusuf's eyes kept lowering downward to take in the rest of him. Which was only fair really given how hard his mate must have worked to achieve such muscle definition and that posterior.</p><p>The sculpted perfection of his mate's ass deserved a volume of poetry all on its own.</p><p>A fact made all the more obvious when his mate bent at the waist to scoop up more water to rub into his face, shifting his position so that Yusuf had a complete view of his mate's derriere.</p><p>Sculpted by The Goddess herself. No question.</p><p>Edging closer, and paying more attention to the body his mate was attempting to clean than his mate himself, Yusuf gave himself away somehow, the figure he admired so much suddenly twisting around to face in his direction.</p><p>Giving him his first view of his mate's full face and form.</p><p>By The Goddess. Stunning.</p><p>"You came for me." The man said, his voice lyrical even if he spoke in the hated tongue of his people.</p><p>They were not pack. Nor had they performed the rites that would not only mark them as mates to all, but allow them to share their thoughts despite their different beginnings. If he wished to speak to his mate...he too must change form.</p><p>Shifting as he picked his way closer to his mate-a move that had the other man tense up-Yusuf too was in the form of man by the time he left the safety of the trees to stand in the small clearing in full view of his mate as well.</p><p>He stood there and allowed his mate to look his fill, Yusuf wondering what the other wolf thought of his darker skin and beard. Whereas his face would have given much away in this form, his mate's gave nothing away as they looked him over from head to toe.</p><p>Well...one area of his mate's anatomy suggested he did not mind what he was seeing, Yusuf noted with a small, pleased little smile. That made his mate scowl at him.</p><p>"Have you come to take me prisoner? Do you even understand me?"</p><p>Many would not, but Yusuf was a man of languages and words. He understood well enough.</p><p>"I thought you dead and came to bury you." Yusuf said in his mate's tongue.</p><p>His mate's eyes narrowed. "I am not dead."</p><p>"No. You are not." He had to ask. "What is your name?"</p><p>The wait seems endless.</p><p>"Nicolò."</p><p>Nicolò, Yusuf repeats in his head, rolling the name around, etching it forever there. And on his heart.</p><p>It took longer than it should have to realize his mate was waiting expectantly for Yusuf to give his own name, which he did immediately with a look of apology.</p><p>"Yusuf." Nicolò repeated, his way of saying it slightly different, but in a way Yusuf liked.</p><p>Silence descended.</p><p>What was there to say?</p><p>Too much, Yusuf silently acknowledged.</p><p>His mate looked off to the side, arms crossing defensively in front of him. "Thank you. That you came back to see that my body was buried properly. Shown respect."</p><p>"Of course."</p><p>A glance over at him. "I saw you coming. When I fought that last wolf. You were not coming to save me, I don't think...but I heard the anguish in your call."</p><p>He would not lie to his mate. "I don't know what I would have done, had I reached you in time. I'm glad you healed."</p><p>Nicolò's lips curved a little smugly as he stated he was one of his pack's fastest healers. His spine had fixed itself while he'd lain unconscious, the head wound minor. The hand he placed over his neck, well that suggested that that was still tender at the very least.</p><p>Fast healer or not Yusuf was pretty sure the other wolf was still in considerable pain and was refusing to show it, but opted not to call him on it. Instead he turned his attention back to his mate's body under the guise of looking him over for signs of other, as yet unhealed minor wounds.</p><p>That earned him another scowl, his mate looking away again as he muttered words the wind carried to Yusuf sensitive ears.</p><p>"What was The Goddess thinking?"</p><p>"I thought much the same." Yusuf volunteered despite the fact that the words hadn't been directed at him.</p><p>More scowling.</p><p>"I am one of Her priests. I serve Her every day of my life. My mind, body, and soul belong to Her." Nicolò words sounded as though they were being ripped from his chest, confusion and anger and fear lacing at every syllable. "I have only ever done Her work and now She has...this is forbidden! In every way it is forbidden! Yet my very being aches for you. I could reach you in six strides and that seems too great a distance between us! What I thought were my last thoughts were of you and the fact that I did not even know your name! How can-"</p><p>The other wolf went abruptly quiet, his breathing harsh with the exertion of getting that all out.</p><p>"You will return to your people." Yusuf stated, unsurprised.</p><p>"No."</p><p>What?</p><p>His mate's gaze bore into his. "She chose you for me. I do not know why...but I do not question Her or reject one of Her gifts. A fated mate is the great gift one can receive from The Goddess. It is Her will. I do not know why She-but ours is not to question. You are my mate and alpha. I will follow you till death." A small pause. "Unless you do not want me."</p><p>There was only one response to that...</p><p>"Who could not look upon you, see you in battle, and not want you?"</p><p>A startled look. A hesitant, almost shy smile his reward for his words.</p><p>"It-I'm a beta." Nicolò stated, as though Yusuf might possibly have thought him otherwise.</p><p>"Yes. Made for me."</p><p>His mate started walking him then, as cautiously as a deer entering into an open field. Yusuf did the same as he left the solid ground he'd been standing on and stepped into the ever flowing and changing cool water that lapped and clung to his skin as he moved through it. And together they met at the point where the water reached mid-calf, the two of them staring at each other wordlessly for several heartbeats before Yusuf reached out and cupped his mate's cheek, fingers caressing the bristled skin there.</p><p>Freezing at the touch, obviously startled by the touch, Nicolò very carefully nuzzled into his hand while staring at him, eyes watching him so warily.</p><p>"Your pack won't welcome me into its numbers."</p><p>"No. We will have to find a new pack." It would break his heart to leave all his friends and family, to abandon the fight to protect his pack and lands from those who would take it from them. But he could not fight with them, could not live with them without his mate. His Nicolò.</p><p>"There-there are whispers of a female alpha who has started her own pack. One that welcomes all and doesn't-she is said to allows bonds like ours. She is called Andromache of Scythia."</p><p>Yusuf nodded. "I have heard of her too. And yes...we will seek her out. And together we will find out what The Goddess has in store in us. And why she brought us together."</p><p>"Together." He mate agreed, shoulders and posture straightening now that he was a soldier with clear orders.</p><p>Ridiculously amused over that for some reason Yusuf smiled as he leaned in, pausing a breath away from his mate's lips. "May I kiss you, Habibi?"</p><p>Nicolò nodded, Yusuf swooping in to claim that beautiful mouth with a sigh that was the sound of someone coming home after a very, very long time away from it.</p><p>They would always be home so long as they were together. And they would never be separated again.</p><p>The End.</p>
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